Page 41 of Backpacking through Bedlam

“She’s upstairs, sweetpea,” I said. “We’re playing the floor game now. Want to play the floor game with me?”

She gave me a mistrustful look. “Cookie.”

Oh, for . . .“You can have a cookie after we play,” I said, almost desperately. “You can have two cookies.”

This seemed to satisfy her. She sat down next to my head, barely missing my ear. “Good.”

That was when the shooting started again.

This time, they didn’t stop with blowing out the front window. This time, they kept going until the air smelled like cordite and my ears were ringing so loudly that I could barely hear Jane wailing. I rolled over. She was uninjured but terrified, clinging to the leg of a nearby chair. She had gone for the chair, and not for me, when she was afraid. That should probably have hurt my feelings. In the moment, it felt like a blessing, since it meant I wouldn’t need to peel her off of me before I could react.

“Laura?” I called. “Are you okay?”

“They’re shooting for adults, not kids,” she called down the stairs. “They’re not aiming low. So I’m fine as long as I don’t try to come down the stairs and they aren’t actually inside the house.”

“I think they want to be sure we’re incapacitated before they come in.”

“That sounds like a nice way of saying ‘dead.’ Tell me you have a plan.”

“I have a plan.”

“Tell me you have a plan like you’re not lying.”

“I have a plan.” Something skittered inside the wall. I rolled over, putting my hand in front of the hole in the baseboard. “I’m ready for you.”

The mice started running out of the hole and up my arm, one after the other, until I had the requested twenty volunteers on my chest and shoulders, watching me with tiny, earnest eyes. I explained what I wanted them to do, and they listened as intently as they could until I was done. Then they ran away, as I rolled over and began to crab-crawl away from the still-wailing Jane, heading for the back door.

The mice were faster than I was. I was almost there when one jumped onto my shoulder and squeaked, “Sixteen Enemies surround the Home, Priestess!”

“Good,” I said. Sixteen was too many, but sixteen, I could handle. Sixteen meant my count hadn’t been that badly off. “How many are outside the back door?”

“Two.”

“Better.” I pushed myself into a low crouch and walked to the door without straightening. Pressing myself to the wall, I eased the door open and peered out.

Two Covenant agents stood in the field behind the house, a good fifteen feet from the door, their attention turned toward the front yard, where Veronica was probably giving further instructions. I eased the door closed again.

“You know what to do?” I asked the mouse.

It nodded. “Yes, Priestess.”

“Then tell the others it’s time.”

The mouse was gone in a flash, racing for the living room. I stayed where I was, one hand on the doorknob, and listened as shouting began outside the house. Not just shouting: familiar shouting.

Two things everyone who spends any time around the Aeslin mice quickly learns: they can be louder than should be physically possible, and they never forget anything they hear. That includes accents. If you know where someone is from, but not what they actually sound like, a yelling Aeslin mouse can do a remarkably good job of impersonating them.

The mice ran for the bushes, getting under cover, and began to shout from all sides, some in Thomas’s perfect Penton pronunciation, others in Grandpa’s softer Scots-border accent, or Grandma’s Cornwall. They set up an incredible cacophony, and the Covenant answered with gunfire, all directed of it at the bushes.

The Covenant was so focused on the noise that the two out back didn’t notice when I opened the door all the way, or when I stepped onto the porch. I shot them, one after the other, and retreated back inside. Jane was still wailing. I looked frantically around, finally spotting the cookie jar on a counter. Scurrying across the kitchen, I grabbed it and took out a handful of cookies, shoving one into her mouth and handing her the others.

She chewed, eyes very wide and bright with tears.

“I need you to play the quiet game now,” I said, voice low and probably unnervingly intense for someone as small as she was. She stared at me, and didn’t stop eating her cookie.

That would have to be good enough. The Covenant was still shooting outside, although none of them were currently shooting at the house, which was a start. I stepped out of the kitchen, hissing, “Laura, come on,” toward the stairs.

“What did you do?” she asked, finally descending, arms full of Kevin. He wailed when he saw me, reaching for me with open hands. I gave him the rest of the cookies and he slumped against Laura, looking puzzled.